“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”- Aldous Huxley

Researchers at the University of Texas recently published a study about why men buy or lease flashy, extravagant, expensive cars like a gold plated Porsche Carrera GT. There conclusion was:

“Although showy spending is often perceived as wasteful, frivolous and even narcissistic, an evolutionary perspective suggests that blatant displays of resources may serve an important function, namely as a communication strategy designed to gain reproductive rewards.”

To put that in laymen’s terms, guys drive flashy expensive cars so they can get laid. Researcher Dr Vladas Griskevicius said: “The studies show that some men are like peacocks. They’re the ones driving the bright colored sports car.”

Lead author Dr Jill Sundie said: “This research suggests that conspicuous products, such as Porsches, can serve the same function for some men that large and brilliant feathers serve for peacocks.” The male urge to merge with hot women led them to make fiscally irresponsible short term focused decisions. I think the researchers needed to broaden the scope of their study. Millions of Americans, men and women inclusive, have been infected with Peacock Syndrome. Millions of delusional Americans thought owning flashy things, living in the biggest McMansion, and driving a higher series BMW made them more attractive, more successful, and the most dazzling peacock in the zoo.

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

The herd has been mad since 1970 and with the post economic collapse of 2008, some people are recovering their senses slowly, and one by one. The country was overrun by flocks of ostentatious peacocks displaying their plumage in an effort to impress their friends, families and work colleagues. What set the flaunting American peacocks apart was the fact they financed their splendid display of plumage with $0 down and 0% interest for seven years. The lifestyles of the rich and famous miraculously became available to the poor and middle class through the availability of easy abundant credit provided by the friendly kind hearted Wall Street banks and their heroin dealers at the Federal Reserve.

The United States has experienced a four decade long “expenditure cascade”. An expenditure cascade occurs when the rapid income growth of top earners fuels additional spending by the lower earner wannabes. The cascade begins among top earners, which encourages the middle class to spend more which, in turn, encourages the lower class to spend more. Ultimately, these expenditure cascades reduce the amount that each family saves, as there is less money available to save due to extra spending on frivolous discretionary items. Expenditure cascades are triggered by consumption. The consumption of the wealthy triggers increased spending in the class directly below them and the chain continues down to the bottom. This is a dangerous reaction for those at the bottom who have little disposable income originally and even less after they attempt to keep up with others spending habits.

This cascade of expenditures could not have occurred without cheap easy credit, supplied by Wall Street shysters and abetted by their puppets at the Federal Reserve through their inflationary policies. Real wages are lower today than they were in 1970. Coincidentally, the credit card began its ascendance as the peacock payment of choice in 1970. There are now over 600 million credit cards in circulation in the U.S. in the hands of 177 million fully plumed peacocks and peacock wannabes.

Monthly Payment Nation

“Consumerism re­quires the services of expert salesmen versed in all the arts (including the more insidious arts) of persuasion. Under a free enterprise system commercial propa­ganda by any and every means is absolutely indis­pensable. But the indispensable is not necessarily the desirable. What is demonstrably good in the sphere of economics may be far from good for men and women as voters or even as human beings.” - Aldous Huxley

The country seemed to do just fine from 1945 through 1970 with no credit card debt and moderate levels of auto loan debt. In fact, this period in U.S. history was marked by strong economic growth created by capital investment, savings, and the American middle class realizing the American dream of a better life based upon their work ethic. Around about 1970, the intersection of Baby Boomers coming of age, the belief that social justice for all was a noble goal, and Nixon’s closing the gold window, opened Pandora’s Box and the evil released has brought the country to the precipice of ruin. Today, consumer credit outstanding totals $2.43 trillion, or $22,000 per household. It peaked at $2.6 trillion in 2008 and the storyline fed to the masses was that Americans had seen the light and embraced frugality by paying off their debts. As with most storylines spouted by the mainstream media, it was completely false. The Wall Street banks wrote off over $200 billion since 2008, while delusional peacocks continued to finance and lease gas guzzling luxury automobiles, while charging their purchase of an iPad2 and Lady Gaga concert tickets on one of their 13 credit cards.

It seems a vast swath of America refuse to shed their peacock feathers. This explains why you see BMWs, Mercedes, Escalades, and Porsches parked in the driveways of $100,000 houses. Automobiles are the truest representation of American peacock syndrome. Very few people look at a car purchase in a rational long term financial sense. It’s about impressing the neighbors, your peers and your family. Driving a brand new luxury car gives you the appearance of success. The neighbors don’t know you are in debt up to your eyeballs. This explains why 30% to 40% of all luxury cars are leased. A man could buy a $20,000 Honda hybrid with 10% down and finance the rest at 0.9% for three years. His monthly payment would be $500. After three years he would own the car outright, with the added benefit of getting 45 mpg. He could then invest the $500 per month for the next seven years in gold and silver or something else that benefits from Federal Reserve created inflation. In today’s society this would be the act of a doo doo bird.

Why drive a putt putt car when you can drive the ultimate peacock machine – a BMW 528i with 24-valve inline 240-horsepower 6-cylinder engine with composite magnesium/aluminum engine block, Valvetronic, and Double-VANOS steplessly variable valve timing, 10-way power-adjustable driver’s and front passenger’s seat with 4-way lumbar support, and memory system for driver’s seat, steering wheel and outside mirrors, along with high-fidelity 12-speaker sound system, including 2 subwoofers under the front seats, and digital 7-channel amplifier with 205 watts of power. Plus it looks really cool. This materialism machine can be leased for the same $500 per month that the doo doo bird pays for his Honda hybrid. Of course, after three years of renting luxury wheels the peacock has to turn in the 528i and lease an equally luxurious auto because driving an economy car would now harm his reputation. Colorful plumage is everything to a peacock.

Sometime over the years Americans lost their bearings and began to ignore a basic truth. The only way to accumulate wealth is to spend less than you make and save the difference. Over a ten year time frame the peacock will have dished out $60,000 renting luxury cars, while the doo doo bird will have expended $21,000 during the first three years and then invested $500 per month for 84 months, leaving him with a net $25,000 asset, based on a modest investment return of 5%. The doo doo bird ends up $85,000 wealthier than the peacock at the end of ten years. If you peruse the car dealer advertisements in your local paper, the price of the car is rarely even printed, only the monthly lease payment or 0% financing offer. There is a reason why the average American lives paycheck to paycheck, has no emergency fund for a rainy day, and has virtually no retirement savings socked away. Status, reputation and the appearance of success became more important to millions of Americans than living within their means and actually sacrificing and doing the hard work required to succeed. Delayed gratification is an unknown concept in America.

In 1970, 37% of households consisted of 4 or more people and we somehow managed to get by with one four door car per household. Today, only 24% of households consist of 4 or more people. There are 113 million households and over 250 million passenger vehicles, or 2.2 per household. So, even though the number of people in our households has shrunk dramatically, we needed 120% more vehicles to transport our vast quantities of stuff. Not only do we have more vehicles, but the size of these symbols of gluttony has doubled and tripled, with fitting names like: Tundra, Navigator, Titan, Yukon, Suburban and Hummer. Every soccer mom with two kids needed a 20 foot long, 6 foot high Yukon with an 8 cylinder engine, getting 12 mpg to shuttle around little Aiden and Chloe to their ten scheduled weekly activities. It wasn’t only automobiles that Americans went gaga over. The average home size in 1970 was 1,400 square feet (we drive cars bigger than that today). By 2009, the average home size reached 2,700 square feet. God knows we need 12 rooms for our 2.4 person households. The expenditure cascade started as a trickle in 1970 but became a raging uncontrollable waterfall by 2008.

Delusional Americans have been slowly lured into the web of debt and living their lives based upon whether they can make the monthly payment on their debt. I can anticipate the outrage from those who declare it wasn’t them, it was the other guy. Everyone has an excuse for why they aren’t to blame, but the facts speak otherwise:

Non-revolving (auto & education) debt outstanding is at an all-time high of $1.64 trillion.

The average auto loan is now $27,000 with a loan to value ratio of 80% to 90%, down from 95% in 2007.

Auto dealers are now offering $0 down and 0% interest for 72 months on many models. Ask yourself how a finance company can make a profit with those terms.

There are 54 million households with a revolving credit card balance, proving that approximately 50% of Americans are attempting to live above their means.

The average credit card debt per household with credit card debt is $14,687.

The average APR on a new credit card is 15%, even though the banks can borrow from the Federal Reserve for 0.25%.

In 2009, the United States Census Bureau determined there were nearly 1.5 billion credit cards in use in the U.S. A stack of all those credit cards would reach more than 70 miles into space – and be almost as tall as 13 Mount Everests.

76% of undergraduates have credit cards, and the average undergrad has $2,200 in credit card debt. Additionally, they will amass almost $20,000 in student debt.

On average, today’s consumer has a total of 13 credit obligations on record at a credit bureau. These include credit cards (such as department store charge cards, gas cards, and bank cards) and installment loans (auto loans, mortgage loans, student loans, etc.).

Over 90 percent of African-American families earning between $10,000 and $24,999 had credit card debt. What bank in their right mind would issue a credit card to someone making $15,000 per year?

Discussing credit card debt is highly taboo. The topics at the top of the list of things that people say they are very or somewhat unlikely to talk openly about with someone they just met were: The amount of credit card debt (81%); details of your love life (81%); your salary (77%); the amount you pay for your monthly mortgage or rent (72%); your health problems (62%); your weight (50%). I wonder why?

Penalty fees from credit cards added up to about $20.5 billion in 2009, according to R. K. Hammer, a consultant to the credit card industry. Don’t be one day late with that credit card payment. It’s good to be a bank.

The average late fee was found to have risen to $28.19, way up from $25.90 in 2008. Consumer Action reported that late fees reached up to $39 per incident.

The volume of gasoline purchases placed on credit cards jumped 39% last month from a year earlier, compared with a 21% increase in June 2010. Food shopping increased 5% after falling 7% last year. The value of an average transaction on credit cards outpaced the gain for debit cards, showing consumers are increasingly relying on borrowing to pay for gasoline and other necessities.

After decades of a debt financed contest to display the gaudiest plumage, is the average American happier? Considering more than 10% of all Americans are on anti-depressant drugs, I’d say not. The rat race for status, the appearance of wealth and visible faux displays of success do not increase well-being. If most of our earnings are spent on an empty game of status, we should not expect much improvement in our quality of life. There is something perverse about having more than enough. When we have more, it is never enough. It is always somewhere out there, just out of reach. This is the attitude that drives the criminals on Wall Street and politicians in Washington DC to constantly seek more power and wealth. The more we acquire, the more elusive enough becomes. Much of the debt financed purchases of consumer trinkets, baubles and gadgets is nothing more than an expensive anesthetic to deaden the pain of empty lives.

Based upon the facts, the average American has not benefitted from the decades long materialistic frenzy. They have sacrificed their futures for the fleeting glory of ephemeral riches. In fact, the average American could not have participated in the expenditure cascade had they not been enabled by the financial industry and cheap plentiful money provided by the financial industries’ drug dealer – the Federal Reserve. The financial industry complex used their power and wealth to utilize all means of propaganda and mass media outlets to convince Americans that debt was good and more debt was even better. I’ll address the insidious aspects of the unholy union of debt and propaganda in Part Two – Propaganda Nation Built Upon Delusions of Debt.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans cling to their borrowed peacock feathers as the butcher of reality bears down upon them. The end won’t be pretty. The brave conquerors of strip malls across the land can enjoy their toys, gadgets, and treasures for awhile longer, but they need to remember one thing – Glory is fleeting and death can come suddenly.

“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”

There is an extremely easy way to confirm the veracity of Quinn's thesis that everthing changed in '70-71: go out and price and/or try to buy any 'preparedness' tool related to gardening, home economics, etc and note the pre & post quality, demand and prices. I think you might be amazed - in fact, you might find out you're a litttle behind the curve, since everything of value has pretty much been scarfed up. Um, that would be those busy preparing, instead of snarking away @ ZH.

As for those who dispute my contention that the US neither makes nor provides any good/service desired/wanted by the rest of the world, please note that I didn't say it was impossible. All I said was we don't *currently* produce anything of value. If you start investigating the types of tools, machines, etc that were produced prior to '71, then you'll quickly realize that, indeed, the US used to mfg some pretty high quality shit. (Today, the only mfg done at any technical level is of course done in the service of the MIC.)

I've actually got my wife coming around. I've got a '49 machine that is so perfect, it was clearly made using precision machine tools from the aircraft build-up for WWII. I use it as Exhibit 1 to demonstrate just how far we've fallen from productive, sane people to hopeless addicts wed to the chosen's drug of choice. One I might add, that has been polluting socities for thousands of years.

My little company makes molds for high precision rubber seals and such. My company has no debt of any sort. In my personal life I have no debt of any type other than the sub 30 day CC debt that always gets paid so as to make me a leech on the issuing bankk that misses out in interest.

One tried to get me for a penalty fee and I told them if they wanted it they could close my accounts. They instantly relented.

Guys like me are the ones that are supposed to do a Charlie Munger "suck it up" to fund the forthcoming tax increases and whatever some unresponsive legislator decides to nail me for.

I pay cash for new cars that are half the price of his Honda example. I am a cheap SOB that even can live without A/C in my car and house.

My problem is that I have never gotten a dime of any goo goodies apart from a lousy public skrewel education for a few years, yrt have to pay more than half of my income in taxes, fees and fines to support the parasite class.

Some of my employees are finally getting the point about my rants of the past decade or so, and they are pissed too.

This past Independence Day I mentioned the tax burden of the colonials and the horrid British tax laws. They dismissed it as an impossibility because it had to be a factor of ten too low. It really is far worse than that.

We are already at the point where anyone with arithmetic skills can see that the situation needs a reset to get the parasites off of our backs.

Except that he's wrong, Gentle Dog! I don't know if he's deliberately misinforming, as he has often done in the past, or whether he's just doing a superficial analysis.

This all started in 1958! In 1958, the head of the Russian KGB, Alexander Shelepin, headed a very large team of academics and other experts to analyse the communist failures to date and come up with a new strategy. The resulting plan was approved by the Politburo in 1959 and "endorsed by 80 nations" in 1960.

This 'Shelepin Plan' called for a complete reversal of the prior Soviet and Chinese failed Leninist approach of violent revolution and post-revolution oppression. Instead, it came up with a new strategy of openness ('glasnost') and reform ('perestroika') that would make the communist system "more acceptable" to the West and allow for much slower, but much deeper, integration into the West. A Marxist 'Trojan Horse', if you will!!

You may ask: What related actions - across a broad front - happened at that time?

The CIA came firmly under the control of Allen Dulles and his 'Skull & Bones' appointees.2

Robert Welch formed the John Birch Society in America and warned of (or outlined!) the communist 10-step plan to bring America to its knees. He either knew of the Shelepin Plan and opposed it, or he was a knowing 'antithesis' in the ultimate Hegelian 'synthesis' of a planned outcome.

1. The Catholic Church elected a new pope, Pope John XXIII -- an 'Illuminatus' and Patriarch of Venice. He was a very unpopular choice among conservative catholic cardinals.

2. President Eisenhower issued a directive that superceded all previous intelligence directives and strengthened the Director of Central Intelligence's (Allen W. Dulles, CIA) role within the US intelligence community ... "the broadest and most comprehensive coordinating mechanism in the history of any nation’s intelligence activities.”

3. The Soviets requested: negotiations on European security; an end to the four-power occupation of Germany; a final peace treaty signed with a reconstituted Germany; and the creation of a nuclear-free Germany to act as a buffer zone between the two superpowers. The Soviets threatened that if their demands were not met within those 6 months then they would sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany, officially splitting Germany in two. Summit talks were held in May 1959 and May 1960, but no agreements were forthcoming. When the failed April 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba still saw no agreement at the peace talks in June 1961, the Soviets sealed off West Berlin, overnight on August 12 1961, with 40 kilometres of barbed wire and shut off the flow of traffic and people. Yet Kennedy did nothing about it so, within the next few months, the soviets upgraded the barbed wire to a concrete wall.

Then, in 1959:

The KGB ceased using assassinations as a political tool

Pope John XXIII called a General Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church for 'world peace'. A greatly enlarged Press Office was set up in the Vatican in expectation of much greater external publicity than normal. Among those who sent press representatives to the Vatican were the 'atheist enemies of the church': The Soviet news agency Tass, the Soviet Literary Gazette, and the editor of Izvestia -- Krushchev's son-in-law!

The German Socialist Democratic Party (SPD) adopted the 'Godesberger Programm' to broaden their voter base and move to the centre. This programme forswore all Marxist ideas and dropped hostility to capitalism!!

Then, in 1960:

Televangelist Herbert W. Armstrong forecast the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years later. Was he prescient, or did someone tell him the Soviet plan?

America elected its first Catholic President, John F. Kennedy, son of bootlegger, gangster, diplomat and CIA insider, Joseph Kennedy. The election is very close and generally regarded as having been won only by rigged votes in Chicago -- arranged by Joe Kennedy's mafia friends and party machine.

Immediately after Kennedy's election, William P. Bundy, a chief of staff in the CIA and 'Skull & Bones' member, is appointed by Eisenhower as staff director of the "Presidential Commission on National Goals".

But it gets even better in 1961:

On Jan 20, 1961, in his inaugural address, JFK utters his famous: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!" ... effectively declaring that instead of the government being your servant, you should become the servant of the government. IMO, the formal declaration of war on the American people!

JFK signs a number of Executive Orders giving the President and the Administration unprecedented martial law powers in the event of any declared non-wartime 'state of emergency'. Those EOs still apply today.

Then, in 1963:

Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) becomes POTUS and, shortly thereafter, simultaneously begins escalating the Vietnam War and implementing the 'Great Society' social welfare programmes. Both of these policies together will bankrupt America by 1971.

There are many more 'coincidences' in the 1960-63 period that relate directly to the dire---and well planned---situation that we are in today, but this will do for now. :)

The resulting plan was approved by the Politburo in 1959 and "endorsed by 80 nations" in 1960.

This 'Shelepin Plan' called for a complete reversal of the prior Soviet and Chinese failed Leninist approach of violent revolution and post-revolution oppression. Instead, it came up with a new strategy of openness ('glasnost') and reform ('perestroika') that would make the communist system "more acceptable" to the West and allow for much slower, but much deeper, integration into the West. A Marxist 'Trojan Horse', if you will!!

Most definitely, yes. You should read Anatoliy Golitsyn's book 'The Perestroika Deception' for more details/confirmation.

Also note above that, in 1960, Herbert Armstrong foretold the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990 (though he obviously didn't give, or know, a date). The complicity of the churches was part of the plan -- though, as with the Catholic Church, only certain well-placed moles at the very top were acting against the wishes of most of the senior clergy around them. The same situation applies within the Masons - and also within Skull & Bones - where not all members are 'in on it' - until after the more promising novices have been tested and assessed. The initiation ceremonies are just the first test.

As for your "start with the Reagan years ... up to the present" --- LOL! --- I'm just trying to respond in a forum thread to Quinn's puff piece, not compete with Will Durant with a 'History of the 20th Century"!! Some here will already respond to the above with "tl;dr". However, if you have specific questions that can be answered in a sentence or two, of course I'll try to address them.

i keep hearing about this and i am telling you now that any constititutional convention in this political environment is total and complete lunacy.......i promise you. if they ever convene this, it will be the death null of whatever liberty we have left.............ammending the constititution is not something to be done on a whim.........most if not all , of the ammendments that were added after the bill of rights have been total rubbish..........this one would be no different.........

people wrongly assume that the matrix was a work of fiction. on the contrary, most of it was true, if not a bit metaphorical. the main diversion from reality is that the real matrix does not require wires jacked into the brain. On the contary, and as Descartes pointed out long ago, none of the senses can be trusted, save for through the use of pure mathmatics. the world, however, is about to get a wakeup call.

the govmint exists to fuel its own system. then theres the American people, a separate but not equal system. why arent we equal? we dont band together to confront it. Once that happens, nothing will stop us.the govmint exists to fuel its own system. then theres the American people, a separate but not equal system. why arent we equal? we dont band together to confront it. Once that happens, nothing will stop us.

The Matrix is a good metaphor for the illusion of existence going on right now. If the TPTB MSM told the truth there would be panics.

I don't blame people for not waking up faster. We had a good system at one time and it allowed people to be free to go about their business. Most still think things are still OK and on autopilot. Those days are over.

We didn't ask for all this crap -- take it away! They made us do it, honest!

The reproductive "big dick" status thing has always been around, it's biological, not just humans. The more horses a Sioux Indian had, the more squaws he got to bang. The more territory a lion has, the more he gets laid too. If lions could drive they'd have a gold plated Porshe.

But, the Money Trust banksters and creation of the Federal Reserve took it to a whole new level. Give a guy a monopoly on making money out of thin air in secret and they can have anything they want, including control of everybody else's dick.

Yeah. All those who want to hasten the demise of the Boomers won't have long to wait. I read that old folks homes are a breeding ground for STDs. They don't use "protection" since they think all the old farts are safe. Ha! Just wait, the oldsters will screw themselves to death.

New idea: Free Viagra to anyone over 65! Yes, even the old hens. They'll lace the lemonade with it.

It's not just that to get laid men make irresponsible decions, it is that they do so and get away with it that is attractive. The alpha can do what it wants; it can take risk. These people, the ones over credited: Super-alpha pretenders. And the one that pretends to be on the upper level and is not is at the bottom. They are the first ones dead.

Of course, in Amerikah, due to free mortgages, and credit cards, we are all alphas now.

If a woman responds to the gold plated whatever then run, do not walk to the nearest exit...not worth fucking. Most of the time I drive a Piaggio MP3 around town to save on gas...do I have to? Nope but I do pick up a gold maple leaf here and there...and the best part...I get more nukie than I can handle. Americans don't own shit...they rent or lease everything. 30K millionaires!

I was kind of down the other night and by 2am could not come around. I put the top down on my German 2 seater and run the deserted interstate at 130/mph for 15 minutes blasting Maria Kallas L'amour est un oiseau rebelle. The adrenaline, the fear and the exhiliration turned me around. I could definitely not be able to do that with a Prious or a FIAT (pun intended.) No chemicals were used and no animals were hurt.

the best moments in luxury cars are when nobody is around but yet they are inherently used as misplaced hate for representative of all that is evil. the discussion of the morality of our purchase decisions

is a sideways entry into something else.

maybe they will create a high end luxury car, but destroy the body, or somehow make it clear the owner has no wish to be overpower any other human beings.

its for this reason my luxury car was purposely split in half on a pole. it needed to be clear.

enjoy your ride! apparently soon it will be to the gallows for anybody with property deemed unneccessary.

“Although showy spending is often perceived as wasteful, frivolous and even narcissistic, an evolutionary perspective suggests that blatant displays of resources may serve an important function, namely as a communication strategy designed to gain reproductive rewards.”

Noooooooooooooooooo, say it isn't so! That's some brilliant research right there I tell's ya! I wonder how many taxpayer dollars was spent on that? These guys need to go work for the fed. A fantastic addition to the crack research team. Send them to San Fran, they'll fit right in.

You know I've been reading this kind of shitcanning of American culture for forty years and frankly it's kinda boring. It's a target rich environment. But so what? For every fancy car I see on the roads I see hundreds of modest, 5 to 15 year old beaters. Is the news flow so slow today that Jim Quinn has nothing better to recycle? Or is this really just another informercial for his site?

But his current thesis here is bullsh!t. Stanley and Danko's research outlined in the Millionaire Next Door found that the exact opposite of what he is calling a spending cascade was found among the "wealthy". JCPenny suits, cheap watches, and keeping money secrets from the kids was more the rule.

There is a BIG difference between high net worth and high income, and the same goes for Madison Ave versus Main Street... he seems to have a real angst/ax to grind, and the sparks are clouding his objectivity.

I think a deeper or more thorough reading is in order. Did you miss the part about leasing? Real millionaires are not the peacock feather type to start with. The article is correct, even if quite obvious in its conclusion.

Funny, when I logged on to read an article earlier this evening, a Mercedes ad was on the right side of the page. So, we have the bling advertised. Right now, there's an ad for a furniture store on the left side of the page--all stuff feeding the "Peacock Syndrome".

Covetousness is the new American Disease. Got to find something to fill that big empty spiritual hole--but enough is never enough. We are told to pray "Give us THIS DAY our daily bread." In other words, don't worry about accumulating enough "stuff" to get you through your life. But this probably makes no sense in post-Christian Amerika. . .

Well this post definitely throws cold water on my desire to buy a fishing boat right now. I need this boat to escape reality for a few hours, mainly on weekends. A man can't even go fishing anymore without feeling guilty.

i read it all . & what happens to those people who actually did save their money ? what happens during these coming times of high inflation or even worse, hyperinflation ...... they are wiped out ! only peasants save paper money in a bank @ 0% interest & the education of gold & silver has been lost on the generations. Take my Grandma Jo, for example. (born 1915 god rest her soul.) She saved & saved every damn penny over the years, denied herself everything, wouldn't even buy herself a damn pair of $10 velcro shoes when they first came out in the 1980's. Well, she actually saved herself over $500,000, put it in a damn trust fund to be dispensed in another few years to her heirs. She left this money in trust to a bank (criminal enterprise) for her heirs, & by the time these heirs ever get it, the fees & hyperinflation will have depleted it to squat. ............ so much for saving fiat money .

now, is this true ? is it true that we no longer are subject to "junking" ? you know, i always lived in fear of being junked.

I'm really shocked at your ignorance. Savings is the engine of economic growth. Setting aside wealth (the difference between what is consumed and what is produced) is what drives real economies. Spending is a short-lived substitute only. Spending is a drug that prevents savings and only generates debt, which is a claim on future labor. Debt is not an asset, especially that which is secured by nothing. Consumption is the problem, not the solution. I thought you were better than that.

Think of a savings account as really a loan you make to the bank. That's what it is. It's safe with FDIC insurance, but not safe from inflation, taxes, or bank fees they charge you (for loaning them money!). If there were better awareness of the other alternatives people would use them more.

Savings accounts are for parking a little bit of money, not an investment. Banks take your savings account money, x10 through the miracle of fractional reserve banking, and reinvest your own money to make the real boodle while paying you pennies.

It's just better to make real investments yourself and leave the banker middle-men out. So, if more persons in China need geen tech, houses, and gotta eat --- you invest in Catipillar stock here so CAT can ramp up production = jobs here --- and you get eg., 10%/yr and the Chinese get jobs and smiles on their faces. Efficient win-win-win with minimal government internvention.

But free-markets are so screwed up now it's not working like it's supposed to. That's why Steve Wynn was bitching the other day about you know who.

The most excellent, ever, "The Pencil" by Milton Friedman, explanation how your investment in a simple pencil company helps people all over the world:

Your overall analysis is correct. However, in business cycles overall analysis has to fit the cycle phase. So as Keynes proved, to come out of an exceptional depression, after ensuring that the fallout from the previous asset bubble has been cleaned out by government regulation that redefines rules, consumer demand and deficit spending can be the accelerator to the economy. But only upto a point; when the civil society, once back on its feet, takes over again. Keynes was NEVER an advocate of massive government deficit spending. He just provided a cure to the previous asset bubble of 1929, including advocating government regulation measures. His bancor monetary system, neutral and not linked to a national fiat currency, would have saved the US the subsequent USD-gold standard mess, in the wake of 'great society' and Vietnam war expenditures, that created the rush to globalisation in the 70's; after Nixon's decision to opt out of BW.

So the Keynesian bashers have that wrong by saying he loved big government deficits as part of his 'demand side' economic theory. But they LOVE bogey men, don't they : Blame it all on Carthage etc! It's very old hash from Roman imperial days! Those reactionary conservative talks about keeping the empire's core values pure and pristine.

But coming back to the business cycle paradigm : In the good years, savings keep the economic pump primed to go through the next business cycle trough. But what Reaganomics has done is to destroy the business cycle model and to replace it with the bubble cycle, now decreed as never ending QE! So now all so called "advanced economies" are in deep shit. Somebody has to go bell the cat...

I understand bolstering aggregate demand to stave off collapse through the paradox of thrift, but the one part I've never been able to get a straight answer on is how you get off the train once you start. How do you avoid having a 1937 moment and get back to an economy which doesn't expect its 'fix' of stimulus?

Just because a person holds their money in a savings acct. doesn't mean they "are not electing to participate in the economy in any meaningful way". They should be rewarded for saving when the shit hits the fan and they're the one's with capital ready to deploy on buying cheap assets. This however hasn't been the case, with the government using homebuyer tax credits and the like to prop up housing and artificially low interest rates/QE to spur borrowing, 'ole granny's savings haven't been holding up too well.

Think of this: if we had true long-term price stability and the dollar you saved today could buy nearly the same quantity of goods 40 years from now, you wouldn't even need S. Security or a 401k or pension, or even to invest in risk assets at all. You'd just have to save diligently. One can do this by buying gold..

Savers are the lifeblood of the economy. They put their deposits into a bank and it gets reinvested into the economy so poor people can buy houses and businesses can grow and create new jobs. If savers pull their money out, or there's a run on the banks, the economy dries up, eg., 1929.

The problem I have is that most of the idiots that were abusing the system with easy money have now defaulted and now the system is fucked, which is causing people that had good jobs and could afford all the cool crap to get laid off and default on their obligations. I have been one of the good sheeple and paid my mortgage on time and sat and watched the value of my house plummet. Now what? I built my own house, and put into it 80,000 of my own cash. Vanished, gone. All because of these worthless idiots that took interrest only loans then defaulted. I blame them but I also blame the banks for giving anyone that could walk through their front door a mortgage. What is the purpose of a credit raiting? What a crock of shit. I hope the entire system implodes. See you all in hell bitches!!!

I understand the anger, and I feel it too- but what does it really mean if the nominal value of your house goes down, when you need a place to live and raise your family, and it is still there?

Now if you actually lost your house, I'm sorry to hear that. If you just lost equity, try not to sweat it.

I really liked this article- when I was young, I watched how the rich people acted and what they did- not the flashy ones, but the ones who never seemed to want for anything, no matter what happened. This helped when I was a contractor, and knew how to speak to and act around old money, and it gave me the chance to look at that world even more.

The wealthy don't "peacock," and neither do I. Glad to hear my observation is not mine alone.

People think I'm poor, and I'm happy enough with that perception- but everything I have is mine, not the bank's.

To fill in the blanks, I have lost the equity, and now I am losing the house. I have never owned a BMW. I drove a honda until it had 364,000 miles, I now drive a Toyota truck with 174,000 miles. I always paid my bills off. I don't owe anyone shit! Except the bank note on my house. I still have a job, but have not had a pay increase in 3 years. Last year I took a pay cut as they had to increase the amount they took out of my paycheck to cover the wonderful healthcare law the fucking assholes in washington passed. Well you know the old saying of making 'the ends meet"? Well that is not happening anymore! FUCK OBAMA!!!!!!!! FUCK THE FEDERAL GOV!!!.....maybe I should not have drank all that beer....

Well, probably won't run out of material if you keep pointing out how stupid people are, but it's worth remembering that there's not a multi-trillion dollar industry devoted to pushing the mantra of sensible spending and the long-term rewards of honest work and slow accumulation.

People will eventually believe something if you repeat it enough. Our marketing/advertising industry tells us that spending makes us happy, beautiful, and rich. It's not every mind that will resist that majority of stimulus indefinitely.

We built this for ourselves. Maybe it kinda sucks we have to pay for it too, but it's about time.

This is another dumb artical. Its not just an American thing to buy flash cars etc. Just go take a look in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo or any European city and you will see plenty of flash---If they got it on debt they dumb, if they earned it---good for them!

***There is something perverse about having more than enough. When we have more, it is never enough. It is always somewhere out there, just out of reach. This is the attitude that drives the criminals on Wall Street and politicians in Washington DC to constantly seek more power and wealth.***

There is a story that Kurt Vonnegut and Ken Kinsey (both successful authors) were at a party given by a very successful hedge fund manager.

Kinsey said to Vonnegut: "Do you know that this guy makes more in a day than we ever made with our most successful books?"

Vonnegut replied: "That may be true, but I have something this guy will never have"

I get your point, and it's well taken! But I still like the Kurt Vonnegut with the Harrison Bergeron character.

The "Handicapper General" shall make everybody equal in every way. The ballet dancers that jump too high are given weights to weigh them down until they can jump no higher than anyone else. So there they are, theatre of the absurd, ballet dancers jumping around on stage with weights a-dangling.

Life is graded on a curve. For those who insist on diversity, there it is, it never left.

No saturation of "stuff": If you put a baseball next to a chicken sitting on an egg, they will get off the egg and try to hatch the baseball because it's bigger and better. If you put a softball next to the chicken it repeats the process. People simply have the same sorts of drives with houses and cars.

If people equate "stuff" with getting laid, then that's what happens. But if people equated happiness with gettting laid --- then they just go to Costa Rica!

Absolutely. But this I got it as a 3 year-old (never buy new) at a commercial auto auction to flip, but the damn thing drove so good I decided to keep it. It's not even really a chick car, it's four door family thing.

For chicks, hard to beat the old reliable banana in the pants routine. Works fine and doesn't make the insurance rates go up.

As I have stated before, most Amerikans are complete dumb-asses. That 53% of us elected Obama is proof enough. Most teenagers think the Middle East is Ohio. I see another 13 year-old with 3 cell phones and I am going to puke.

Nice article. But missed the "elephant in the room" - energy. US oil extraction peaked in 1970/71, OPEC realised the power it had, and the energy crisis plunged the US economic system into recession. It never really recovered, and kept going only through the illusion of credit-based "growth".

Exactly, the point of the peacock analogy is supposed to be that the scarcer recources become more desirable. That humans would eventually drive a species to extinction BECAUSE it was scarce. Where's the sense in destroy a valuable piece of biotechnology for peacock feathers?

In other words free market ideology is dumb because it doesn't properly reflect humanities short sighted hunter gatherer nature. Because it can't explain the price of an original Picasso over a perfect replica, annoying.

a real man doesn't have to drive a gold plated phallic symbol to get his knob bobbed. i don't like junking people and that's no longer an option anyway but, Pure Evil, you are puerile. and your second sentence convinces me that your knob must be a nubbin.

Yen, I'm thrilled I could help since I'm a luddite. Thanks for leaving a note and for wishing me well with trading. Same to you. I have a little here, a little there, good friends, good children, a cozy space, music, and enough to pay my bills. I've had to sell some sentimental items, but that's okay. Holding some nice pieces.

Hey Dr. BUG-EYE... Teach your kids to think for themselves. They will be Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise! They will share that wealth, in all 3 ways... There is nothing wrong with aspiring to better yourself financially or personally... matter of factly they, they generally run in tandem. I employ people and treat them very well. I donate large sums of money, and my company is considered small...

That's a phylosophy I deeply embrace. I expose my kids to everything from theater, working in charitable organizations,sports, political thought, and the normal every day bumps and bruises( I believe in letting them take risks much to their mother's chagrin). I try to provide them the best education I can and I work with them on a one on one basis. I don't have a problem with them enjoying the luxuries in life as long as they come from hard honest work. I just know as messed up as things are right now that it's going to be a lot more difficult for them than it was for me.

Thank you {Both} " Gentleman"... I read both of your post's. Watch out for month end flows... The Quarter ended 6-31, but the real slush is coming late this week. The month end is on a weekend... I'll be around for FX stuff. [GOIN FAWR] I have special respect for you... Just Like Slewie. Yen

Look no further than the greedy welfare statist, and racist, dems who set up all the Ponzi systems and "Great Society" to buy votes back onto the plantation after being forced to pass civil rights for blacks in 1964. MLK was marching on the democrats in 1963 --- not "Washington". In 1963, dems controlled everything and were threatending to roll back school integration post-Eisenhower. Southern Manifesto included: Al Gore Sr., Robert Byrd, and Bill Clinton's mentor Wm Fulbright, et al.

The first civil rights act was passed by the GOP in 1875, after they abolished slavery. The 1964 act was just a carbon copy dems were forced to sign and accept. Jefferson Davis, Woodrow, FDR and the Confederacy were all racist segregationist dems. One third of all the people lynched by dems btwn 1885-1935 were white republicans still fighting for civil rights for blacks. (tuskegee inst). To turn the votes around the dems were desperate.

The welfare statist Ponzi Schemes were dems buying votes so they wouldn't go extinct. We live the results 47 years later.

Don't try to main street media me pal. Before you try to comment about an individual you better know what you're commenting on or else you just look like a fool. I do my own research and formulate my own opinions. The msm doesn't enter my house hold.

The fact of the matter us the baby boomers sucked the life out of this country because they either wanted welfare of any sort. Or they felt they were entitled ,by any means , to have it all. The worst of the lot are the rich boomers who want all the government hand outs. They are the ones who really make me sick. I'm all for being wealthy and self reliant, but the rich welfare pigs who stand in line with their hand out disgust me.
Another thing that makes me sick is a "party" person who believes the bullshit coming out of either party. It tells me that there is an apparent lack of critical thinking for ones self.

No problem, It's just that "boomer" is a MSM mainstreet intergenerational slur. It seemed to roll off your keyboard so easily. It's a diverse group and all the ones I know are self-reliant who paid into the system for years thinking their retirement was safe and and are now sick they will have nothing. Agree, the rich can take care of themselves.

But the notion that all boomers are rich spoiled brats is bewildering. I'd like to see some research on that. Agree, those "rich" enough should be mean tested out of social benefits, adn plenty would not object. Also think we can't afford to pay illegals social benefits when we're clearly broke.

Not a party guy, but gotta call 'em as I see 'em. There's not many major initiatives (M/Care Rx noted) for Welfare State Ponzi schemes by GOP. It's a dem thing. The root cause of most massive government giveaways are to buy votes, and The "Great Society" was no exception, and the biggest ever --- Medicare, Medicaid, & Welfare -- to keep the dems from going extinct. It was passed by old white men who are now dead, not boomers.

Medicare is our biggest unfunded liability. Boomers paid into it for decades like drones and they will also get ripped off the most. Those who set up these Ponzi schemes have left us all fighting each other over scraps as the end result becomes clear.

In the United States alone, over 50% of the discretionary spending power rests with the baby boomers and they are responsible for over half of all consumer spending. In the area of health care, baby boomers buy 61% of over the counter medications and an astonishing 77% of all prescription drugs. Even their vacation habits play a big role in the economy with boomers accounting for about 80% of all leisure travel.

Too bad they did it all with HELOCs and plastic. Chumps. Who do you really think Dubya's Medicare Part D was aimed at, as long as we're talking about 'buying votes'?

Hey, that's good stuff snowball. Seriously. And I agree with Dubya's cheesy ploy, duly noted above. You nailed it alright. He had to go.

The boomers are post-1945 WWII and are just hitting M/Care as of 2010. Do your numbers also reflect we might still be finishing up their parents gobbling meds?

Behind those numbers, it doesn't surprise that older people spend more money. Is not counter-intuitive. They tend to make more, and pay more taxes, especially as the older persons hit their peak earnings years. They also tend to buy fewer bigger ticket items, having delayed gratification on such things for years. They're not buying school supplies or baby food.

College kids will pile into a used KIA to drive to Florida for spring break, while middle-class Grandpa/ma finally splurge on a Cadillac after all these years so Grandma's bones don't hurt on the drive down to meet the Cruise Line to go see the Carribean for their 25th anniversary. But Grandpa and Grandma once piled into a car with their pals back in the day, too, or hitchhiked.

They're older and sicker and are going to need more meds.... Those rebels. On the plus side, they are not likely to show up in the ER for free treatment of gunshot wounds by getting into a shootout with a rival granny gang. Chances are good that Grandpa/ma boomer are the 50% that are not only paying their own way, but paying the taxes that pay for the gangbangers free treatment and his million dollar free homicide trial and free appeals.

In fact, the cost of USA crime was estimated by one economist at $1.5 Trillion per year. Not a typo. I even find that high. But he included costs of locks, higher insurance rates, repairs, medical care, police, security systems, training, lawyers, incarcerations, food, jails, clerks, buildings, parole ofr, rehab, theft items, courts, jury time, labs, etc. etc. Whatever the number, the point is that it is shockingly high, and crime does not produce any real benefit ,and is a huge cost drag on everything else.

Over a criminals lifetime he will cost about $1-2 million --- but the real average cost is actually double that amount. Since they're costing money instead of producing $1-2 million of benefit to society over the their lifetime, the real cost is a swing double to total about $2-4 million -- average of all criminal types. And I'm being conservative, here -- so if they just got a regular jobs, no college. $2 million x 5 million career criminals in the USA = about $10 Trillion lifetime cost, due to only about 5 million career criminals amongst us.

Just think of the potential government savings by just stomping on 5 million young low-lifes. They cost us big money, they hurt people, and dont't contribute. Now that's where the real money is at -- and they're perfect scapegoats.

The absurd -- The government could just make guilty pleas compulsory for capital offenses to save money and send them straight to lethal injections. Chances are they are guilty, and probably of many other things too, and will commit many more crimes throughout their lives anyway, so why not? That's the sort of attitude the Chinese already have. Outrageous?

Not so absurd -- Obamacare does the same thing to grandpa and grandma and they haven't done anything but pay into the system. If grandpa gets prostate CA and has a 50% chance (guilty/not guilty?), the government could make denial of his treatment compulsory. More, the doctor will be fined $200K first offense for treating the patient against gov orders, and the doctor goes to jail (plus fine+/-?) the second time he disobeys the government. I'm a physician, it's in there -- b/c Govco thinks it's a misallocation of doctors time if we were to decide who to treat, and how, even if the patient wants to pay out of pocket. Another reason Obamacare has been kept hidden. This is what government control of health care means.

Just imagine the national outcry if the trial lawyers were just informed that a ObamaJustice.Gov bureaucrat would hencefoth decide the criminal cases and make the lawyers decision biding and compulsory -- or the lawyer goes to jail too -- in order to save money. So why not? Saves us big money and they're criminals! Everybody hates them anyway.

Thing is, what we are not even willing to do to murderers, we are willing to do to grandpa and grandma. And it's not because they're just boomers, it's that they're all demonized as being "rich" boomers --- and somehow that's seems to be their real crime. It's as if people have all been brainwashed into thinking they spent their whole lives dumping toxic waste into rivers to get ahead, instead of just running the corner store. And this is straight out of the marxist/fascist playbook.

See, anybody can pick a demographic and scapegoat them. It's too easy. That's exactly what totalitarians like Castro and Hugo Chavez do to divide the people and motivate them to participate in their distracting crackdowns and confiscations instead of just fixing their dysfunctional economies they like to wallow in.

You could be right, but of all the boomers I know and work with, we all work our asses off and our kids have gone on to successful careers. I never participated in "boomer culture" myself--the drugs, etc of the sixties and seventies. I don't know anyone who isn't paying his or her own way, but then I don't associate with the idle rich or near rich. I associate this peacock garbage Wall St or DC types. I guess I've been shielded from a lot of vulgar consumption patterns. I see nothing wrong with driving a high-end car. You're practically forced to all but live in the damn thing, after all, but I bought mine because of the durability, engineering, and safety. Those little Asian crackerboxes are your worst enemy in an accident.

Regarding luxury items and nice cars, let's not be puritan. If I had the money, I could easily go for a Jag roadster, for example. Some of these high-end cars are works of art that are some of the most beautiful things people can purchase for themselves in this spirit killing modern world. Beauty is what keeps the heart young, even as the body ages. In a way, these beautiful things are wasted on the rich who basically appreciate nothing. That's why these Wall St and DC power grabbers are so acquisitive. They are incapable of appreciating the beauty in the things they already possess. They're basically empty souls who want to parade around like Louis XIV, who built the most magnificent palace in the world on the Loire and stayed there all of 32 days.

I think that figure is much higher, " In reality"... Personally I don't take aspirin. I like a snort of a nice drink once in a while, and a nice cigar. Other than that I have better things to do! Namely "ONE"... Living live AWAKE.

Fag? ...this, from a saliva soaked Obamabagger named... snow-balls?? You must still be mad. Sorry about the drubbing you got last night, I wasn't even trying, but crying is good for you. But it's not good for your glue-sniffing health to hold a grudge -- it's all about the blood pressure. Why don't you just let your parents move in with you? They can baby sit both you and your 2 year-old when you fire up the bong. That is, when you're not using them as human shields to hide your obvious goodness.